Calibre Companion Not Showing All Covers

[seacity1]

I have 683 books listed in Calibre Companion on my Nook HD+. About 30 of them do not show covers (all epub) even though the covers show in up in the Nook library & on my shelves. All of these books have covers which show up in the Metadata in Calibre but they don't show up in the metadata info in Calibre Companion. I even went back into Calibre & did epub/epub conversions to make sure the cover was "bound" to the book & did a new "sync" operation. The covers still do not show up - only the book title.

This is very strange as I am even showing covers for PDF books when no covers shows in the Nook library. (the Nook library does not show covers for PDF)

Not sure what the problem is or what to try next. Any idea?

[chaley]

Are they covers unusual in some way? Very large or very small? Have you changed the cover size in CC's settings? When you connect to calibre as a wireless device, do these books have a check in i the in-library column in the device view?

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by seacity1

About 30 of them do not show covers (all epub) even though the covers show in up in the Nook library & on my shelves. All of these books have covers which show up in the Metadata in Calibre but they don't show up in the metadata info in Calibre Companion.

After ensuring I actually have all 30 books in my calibre library I would; delete the 30 books from my device; power cycle the device; then resend those 30 books back to the Nook.

Originally Posted by seacity1

I even went back into Calibre & did epub/epub conversions to make sure the cover was "bound" to the book & did a new "sync" operation.

Unlike some readers CC does not care what is in the book, it syncs the cover in calibre to CC.

Originally Posted by seacity1

This is very strange as I am even showing covers for PDF books when no covers shows in the Nook library. (the Nook library does not show covers for PDF)

As I stated above CC does not get the cover from the book but from Calibre.

[seacity1]

Originally Posted by chaley

Are they covers unusual in some way? Very large or very small? Have you changed the cover size in CC's settings? When you connect to calibre as a wireless device, do these books have a check in i the in-library column in the device view?

There is nothing unusual about the cover size & they do all show up when I connect to Calibre as a wireless device. Most of them had already been side-loaded prior to installing Calibre Companion. The covers show up in the Nook library & on the shelves I've created in the Nook. The only place they do not show up is in Calibre Companion. I have tried removing them & adding them back in but the outcome is the same.

Since the covers show up in the Nook library I guess I'll just live with it. However, it's just really strange & I wish I knew why it was happening so I can avoid it in the future.

[chaley]

Well, I am confused too. Looking at the code, if the following are all true then calibre will send a cover and CC will display it.

1) Calibre has "metadata management" set to "automatic". Turning on the wireless device driver does this, but it could be turned off. Check at preferences -> sending to device -> metadata management.

2) When CC is connected as a wireless device, the book shows up in the device view and has a check mark in the "in library" column.

3) There isn't a second book showing somewhere in the device column that is an almost-duplicate of the first and does not have the in-library check.

4) The book has a cover shown in edit metadata for that book.

One thing to try to be absolutely sure that the book in CC is the one in calibre. Put an unusual tag on one of the books, one that exists no where else. Connect your device and let it sync. Is that tag now in CC both in grouping and in the view metadata window for the book? And the book still has no cover? If so, it might help to see a calibre debug log for the connection. Instructions for making a debug log are in the CC FAQ answer How do I get help?. To save yourself some trouble you might want to start the debug log before you connect the device just in case the tag appears, so you won't need to repeat the experiment.

[PatNY]

I just uploaded 698 epubs to Calibre Companion on a new Nook HD using the wireless connection to Calibre. Every single cover shows up fine. So, seacity, if you can't figure out what the issue is based on the suggestions given so far, I'd be happy to try to troubleshoot the problem if you pm me with a download link to one of the epubs you are having an issue with. Since I have virtually the same hardware and software you are using, I can try out your file and see if it's working for me. That may help pinpoint where the problem lies.

--Pat

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by seacity1

I have tried removing them & adding them back in but the outcome is the same.

After you removed them did you power cycle your Nook before adding them back in?

[seacity1]

Originally Posted by chaley

Well, I am confused too. Looking at the code, if the following are all true then calibre will send a cover and CC will display it.

1) Calibre has "metadata management" set to "automatic". Turning on the wireless device driver does this, but it could be turned off. Check at preferences -> sending to device -> metadata management.

2) When CC is connected as a wireless device, the book shows up in the device view and has a check mark in the "in library" column.

3) There isn't a second book showing somewhere in the device column that is an almost-duplicate of the first and does not have the in-library check.

4) The book has a cover shown in edit metadata for that book.

One thing to try to be absolutely sure that the book in CC is the one in calibre. Put an unusual tag on one of the books, one that exists no where else. Connect your device and let it sync. Is that tag now in CC both in grouping and in the view metadata window for the book? And the book still has no cover? If so, it might help to see a calibre debug log for the connection. Instructions for making a debug log are in the CC FAQ answer How do I get help?. To save yourself some trouble you might want to start the debug log before you connect the device just in case the tag appears, so you won't need to repeat the experiment.

I did some experimenting. For starters I am certain all the books are are on the device. I can see them in the Nook library, I can open them & they do have covers. With my device attached by USB I can also see them in Explorer in the default folder on the device. I can also click on them & they will open in ADE & the covers show up.

On my computer this is what happens when I am connected wirelessly. If I click on device view in Calibre the books with the missing covers show up on the list, but no check mark, no cover. When I switch to library view, no check mark but the cover does appear when I open the book.

When I connect by USB same situation in device view (listed/no check/cover). But when I switch to library view all but 5 of the books are checked & covers show up.

Since only 30 books out of 684 are affected I probably should leave well enough alone since I know the books are there & the covers do exist. However, it bugging me so I will try one more time. I am going to try removing & adding them back again. This time I will do them one @ a time & do a shut down after each one to see if that makes any difference in the outcome.

Thanks for everyone's help & suggestions.

[seacity1]

Originally Posted by DoctorOhh

After you removed them did you power cycle your Nook before adding them back in?

Yes I did a shut down before adding the books back again. Per my note above I am going to repeat the process & see if I can get a different out come.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by seacity1

Yes I did a shut down before adding the books back again. Per my note above I am going to repeat the process & see if I can get a different out come.

When I say add them back I am referring to using CC to add them to the Nook.

[seacity1]

Originally Posted by PatNY

I just uploaded 698 epubs to Calibre Companion on a new Nook HD using the wireless connection to Calibre. Every single cover shows up fine. So, seacity, if you can't figure out what the issue is based on the suggestions given so far, I'd be happy to try to troubleshoot the problem if you pm me with a download link to one of the epubs you are having an issue with. Since I have virtually the same hardware and software you are using, I can try out your file and see if it's working for me. That may help pinpoint where the problem lies.

--Pat

Thanks Pat (I'm Pat also). I don't think it is a file issue. All of the problem files had been sideloaded by USB prior to installing Calibre Companion. They all had covers &, in fact, still show covers in the HD's library. I have only added 40 new files wirelessly & they are all fine.

[PatNY]

Pat,

When you side loaded the books in question to your Nook -- before you had CC -- they went into one directory. Then when you got CC and imported the books again, they went into another different directory (probably CC's default which is actually in internal memory). Right?

Is it possible that for the problematic epubs you have multiple copies of each on your device and somehow that is causing a conflict?

What I would try doing is to manually delete the copies of the books without the cover inside of CC. Then go to your Nook library and delete the same books there (presumably those copies are showing the cover). Then reboot and ONLY import through CC.

I notice that all books imported via CC are showing up in my Nook HD library under "Books" automatically. That must be a change from how it previously worked, as I had read sideloaded books will only show up under "My Files" in the library. Maybe they made that change when they opened up the Nooks to Google Play ... to make their devices more user friendly.

You should also check your Nook folders to make sure there are no copies of the problematic books in the My Files folder, since that is where sideloaded books were previously located.

--Pat

[seacity1]

Pat,
Thanks for the tips. When I first installed CC all the previously sideloaded books in my Nook library had covers as did the new books I sideloaded using CC. I quickly realized that while CC uses it's own folder as a default all my previously sideloaded books were in a folder called Books. Thus, the previously sideloaded books did not show up until I changed the default. When I did this all the books were moved (or so I thought) & the CC default folder vanished.

That's when the problem started as 30 of the newly moved books were missing covers. I did do a search &, while I could not find any "strays", or duplicates, I think you may have identified the problem. I deleted the books without covers from CC but that also deleted them from the library so I did not have to do it twice. I got all my covers back in CC but I ended up with 5 books in the Nook library that no longer have any covers. Aaaargh! I'm probably not going to read then in the near future anyway so I just deleted them so I would not get further annoyed. They will be waiting for me in Calibre if I ever get to them in the future. It seems like there is always something new to read & I probably should prune what's on the device anyway. Thanks so much for your help.

[PatNY]

I'm glad you got things working right. That sounds like that was the problem -- you had dupes of the same book and when you switched the location of CC's default folder into the same one where the first books were, it caused some conflict. If you just import via CC in the future everything should be fine.

BTW, the default directory for CC is "mnt/sdcard" but on the Nook HD, that is actually the internal built-in memory! For some reason, B&N saw fit to call that "sdcard." If you ever need to put in the path for the micro sd card, you need to put in "mnt/ext_sdcard" which is where I now have CC putting my books.

--Pat

[PatNY]

Pat, you should probably also keep the folders where CC puts its books and where the Nook downloads B&N books to separate, or you may encounter this problem again, particularly for books that are also in the B&N cloud.

The books that CC import always show up in the library where books from B&N show up in -- even if you keep the CC-imported books on your micro SD card -- so you don't have to worry about that.

--Pat